Deborah Renshaw raced in NASCAR in the 2000s. She was most successful in the Truck series but her career was overshadowed by controversy.
She began racing in the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series in 2001, quickly becoming successful. Between then and 2002, she achieved thirteen top-ten finishes and became the first female driver to lead a race in the series.
In 2002, she had two serious brushes with trouble. The first was when some of her opponents protested about her car at Fairgrounds Speedway, Nashville. The protesting team, which included driver Mark Day, had entered a car into the race with the intention of finishing behind her so the complaint could be lodged. Deborah was accused of being a “bad driver” when the question of sexism arose, and the protest also covered her team-mate Chevy White, a man. Deborah and her team were sanctioned for an engine irregularity, which apparently comprised a cylinder head that was 0.006 inches too wide. Day admitted to having been in a dispute with Deborah earlier in the season and had made various statements about the ability of women to race.
Later on, this would pale into insignificance. She entered the ARCA Series for six rounds, in a Ford, driving for Bob Schacht’s team. In September, at Charlotte, she was involved in a fatal accident during practice, in which Eric Martin died after being hit by Deborah’s car. He had crashed and was stranded in the middle of the track, although he was uninjured. Deborah came unsighted around the bend at high speed and collided with the driver’s side of the stricken car, killing Eric Martin instantly. Deborah was injured herself and needed surgery on her foot. She has always maintained that she cannot remember anything about the crash itself, other than sliding on fluid dumped by the stationary car. Investigations by ARCA led to recommendations that spotters be compulsory for qualifying as well as races; at the time of the accident, the team spotters were mostly not active. ARCA’s action indicates that spotter coverage was identified as the main cause of the accident, but Deborah came under attack from many sides, with some suggesting that she be tried for manslaughter and banned from racing again. She sat out the rest of the season.
Despite this, she made a small return in 2003, although she only finished one race. Her best result in the ARCA ReMax series the year before had been a seventh place at Nashville, one of three top-tens she picked up. On her return, she managed one 24th place at Daytona, despite having qualified tenth.
Prior to the October accident, she had had a deal with Rick Goodwin to race in the Busch Series in 2003, but these plans were shelved for reasons not made public. As well as losing her Busch drive, she had been dropped from a Dodge diversity programme, which had lost its main funding.
In 2004, she moved over to the Camping World Truck Series after an ARCA drive with Braun Racing fell through, driving a Ford for Bob Keselowski’s team in the second half of the season. Her best finish was 15th, at Martinsville.
She had another season in Trucks in 2005, managing a twelfth place at Dover, but her main sponsor, Easy Care Service Contracts, dropped out at the end of the year, leaving her without funding. She had run almost a full Truck season in Ray Montgomery’s Dodge.
In 2007, Deborah did some Late Model racing, and made a guest appearance in the Nashville ARCA race, in a Ford. She has not raced since and now pursues a retail business career under the name Deborah Renshaw-Parker.
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